


Free in the Sun

by AParisianShakespearean



Series: Dragon Age One Shots [31]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II
Genre: Cuddles, Fluff, Healing Magic, Kisses, Light Angst, M/M, Mages, Mages and Templars, Universe Alteration, tending an injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-19
Updated: 2019-03-19
Packaged: 2019-11-24 10:00:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18163739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AParisianShakespearean/pseuds/AParisianShakespearean
Summary: When Anders takes an unhurt Karl back to his clinic, he thinks about all his hopes for the future.





	Free in the Sun

**Author's Note:**

  * For [GhostGarrison](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GhostGarrison/gifts).



> So this is sort of an "imagine" piece if Karl was never turned tranquil and Anders managed to save him from the chantry and take him back to darktown during the recruitment quest.

His hands shake. He can’t say why—his greatest fear, that of Karl wearing the tranquil brand, did not come to pass. What’s more is that Karl is back. He is alive. He is alright. It’s what Anders wanted, needed, though he doesn’t dare assume Karl’s home, though home ran through his mind in the chantry when they found him. He doesn’t assume anything yet, other than Karl knows what he did and likely disapproves. But there’s time to think of that later.

Now Anders offers a stifled “thank you,” to Hawke and Hawke’s collection of odd companions—a heavily armed ginger, a beefy looking boy with a giant sword that he assumes is the little brother, and a dwarf with a crossbow. There is the matter of the Grey Warden maps to attend to, but Hawke made it clear he’ll be back. Anders made a promise, he is going to attend to it. Hawke has nothing to worry about.

Hawke’s a good man underneath it all, Anders thinks. It also seemed to him that he could see something more in the way Anders rushed to Karl’s side, nearly cried when he saw he was alright. Then the burn of rage was too much. They used Karl to get to him, like they used all the mages. It could have happened. They could have branded Karl. And then—

The rage. The burn. The fire. It overflowed and spilled to his hands and through his being. He didn’t mean for Justice to spring forth. He couldn’t help it. He came out when it was too much, when he could not suppress it any longer. Karl knows, and he disapproves, Anders knows. He must. But he’s alive.

It’s been an hour and they’re back in his Darktown clinic. His hands still shake as he tries to peel away those contemptible and awful Circle robes. But they are awful in both basic fashion sense and with what they represent. Karl needs healing, needs everything, but as Anders tries to take it off to get a better look and heal him, Karl stops him.

Karl’s hands are on his, holding them and squeezing them tightly. He’s sitting on the cot that’s usually for patients and Anders thinks of how he started that day like any other. He didn’t dare hope he would be able to bring Karl back. After everything that’s happened, he very rarely hopes. It makes it too much and too overwhelming that Karl is alive, but he cherishes it. Despite everything he can still cherish some wonderful luck, something beautiful.

But then Anders starts to drift. He wonders of what would have happened had they waited to get Karl. He thinks of all the others that have worn the brand of tranquility and how many more well. He squeezes Karl’s hand tighter and Justice is close to emerging. Justice whispers through him that they were lucky, but something must be done now. If Anders doesn’t do anything…if he remains silent and hidden at Darktown…

You must help them all, Justice says. All of them. They must be—

“Anders?”

He breaks free. His own, he finds himself holding Karl and holding him close. Their arms wrap around each other. Anders tries not to weep into his shoulder, but in his pretending his shoulders shake and his whole body shakes and he tells Karl they’ll pay for using him as bait. They’ll pay, they’ll all pay—

“Enough of that,” Karl says. “Please Anders. Just…hold me.”

Anders nearly cries with such a simple want, but he says “I need to heal you,” and he starts to. He wasn’t hurt, Karl says. They roughed him up a bit, but nothing serious. Never the less the magic pours from Anders and onto Karl. He takes a discarded cloth and wipes the blood from Karl’s lip, and presses his finger against it so it will heal.

Karl takes his hands again. Anders looks into his soul and tells him that if he waited, he would have never forgiven himself.

“I thought you had long given up on me.”

Anders curses himself that Karl ever thought that. In Kinloch Hold they had to keep their relationship a secret, and it occurs to Anders then that with Karl he unconsciously goes back to old habits of hushed tones and secrecy, the two hiding behind bookshelves and cupboards for a brief reprieve of paradise in the cold and dark Circle tower. It’s still dark but they don’t have to be a secret anymore. They can be as loud as they want. Maybe someday they can even walk hand in hand down a street in the sun, proud and happy and in love.

But he’s giving himself too much hope.

“I couldn’t give up on you,” Anders says, holding Karl’s bearded face in his hands.

“I never thought I’d see you again.”

He has been given few sweet reposes in his time. Because of that Anders has always worried he’ll take too much and then it’ll be too much when the moment is finally over. He doesn’t cling to the too few moments of happiness for comfort. He’s learned to cling to his anger, his justice. Fitting he now merges with that spirit of the fade Himself, Justice and all that He stands for.

“I didn’t either,” Anders admits.

“How did you even get here?”

“A long story,” Anders says. “But Kirkwall. It’s a place for old washed up Fereldens like us.”

Karl chuckles and Anders chuckles and he can’t help it. He kisses Karl’s hand not out of habit—back in the Circle there was hardly any time for such casual yet beautiful intimacy—but out of a desperate want and starvation for comfort. He’s had not one since he’s arrived.

But he has it now.

“When I heard you were here, I had to do something,” Anders says. He kisses Karl’s hand again.

“I’m worried about what you’ve become Anders,” Karl whispers. “You brought the fade to the chantry. You merged with a spirit, didn’t you? Anders, what if—”

“Karl, please,” Anders begs, holding onto him all the more tightly. “I know.”

“How?”

It’s a long story, he admits. Maker, Karl doesn’t even know Anders is a Grey Warden and he’ll never dream a peaceful dream. Not that he would anyway, after everything.

Now, Anders just wants to be kissed. He wants perhaps not to be loved, but to feel wanted and needed. He wants to be touched.

He asks Karl, the first he ever felt for, who he never thought he would see again, and didn’t dare hope for but wanted all the same. Karl gives, Anders sinking down to the cot. They hold each other, and they kiss. It’s soft at first but it becomes more and more intense and hard, Anders nipping softly at Karl’s lip, Karl tugging at the furs Anders wears. It’s so much and it’ll disappear. It will—

“I’m here,” Karl whispers. “I’m not going to leave Anders. I’m safe.”

They have so much to talk about. For now, Anders nods and indulges in a moment longer than he’s used to. Then, later in each other’s arms, they speak of trying again. It will be hard, yes, but nothing has been easy. It doesn’t mean it’s not worth it.

And as they fall asleep, Anders does allow the hope, that one day they can walk free in the sun with Karl, hand in hand as any other lover.


End file.
